In the morning, I awoke determined to catch Caelyn and discuss my bizarre behavior of the night before. But…of course, she'd slipped out of the house before I'd even opened my eyes. Either she wasn't lying about the early morning meeting, or she was trying very hard to avoid me.
I quickly forgave her abandonment, though, when I saw what was waiting for me under the warmer—a big plate of scrambled eggs and a very rare steak. I was eating as I walked over to the table.
After I'd gulped down the delicious meat—Caelyn was right; protein was good—I realized I didn't exactly know what time Ron was coming to pick me up. In my haste, I went screaming up the stairs, almost breaking my legs when I tripped near the top.
The shower was probably the most hurried of my life. I skipped drying my hair in favor of looking for something to wear, skimming through the dresses hurriedly. Caelyn hadn't even put a pair of pants on me until I'd nearly turned twelve, which most likely explained my preference. There was just something about the way a skirt swirled, unconfining, about your legs. I very much preferred the way they felt than jeans hugging tightly against my skin. Like my mother, I chose simple, classy, but casual designs in dark colors.
The day's choice was a dark grey, plain except for the ribbon trimming the edges of the long sleeves and bottom of the full skirt. Of course, all my dresses were paired with tights thick enough to hide the pallor of my long legs. Light brown Mary Janes completed the ensemble.
Some light make-up followed, but I still hadn't dried my hair when the doorbell rang. I smoothed its unruliness down as best I could before nearly injuring myself, yet again, in my rush to get the door.
I took a deep breath to calm myself and undid the chain, turned the doorknob, my shaking hands ruining my attempt to be casual.
He was…breathtaking. Mine was stolen right away. I had no air with which to say hello.
He smiled that smile, his smile. I was awestruck.
Memories of the night before intruded on the moment. A tremor of worry at how the night had begun…the amazing movie and…
"Thank you for the Timothy!" I leapt at him, and he caught me up in a hug. "And the songs," I added at his ear.
"You liked the surprises?"
"More than you can imagine."
He pulled away to look at me. "I don't know… I can imagine quite a bit."
"I loved them." My voice was heavy, all weighted down with emotion. "I just wish you hadn't spent so much on the…"
He put his finger on top of my lips, silencing them. "Did you sleep good last night?" he asked. His finger moved away so I could answer.
"Oh, yes!"
"Worth every penny, so not another word about that, okay?" He smiled a sly smile.
"Okay." That smile could have made me agree to gnaw my own hand off at the wrist.
"So what do you wanna be up to today?"
"Hmmm, I guess I kind of thought you'd decide that… I've got nothin'…" I started to think really hard, though.
He started to speak, but I suddenly erupted with "I know! I want to see your room! Your house!"
"Sure, okay. You ready to go right now?"
I guess my hair would have to drip dry. "Yeah, let's go!"
I was fairly bouncing with excitement when we were in the car. He, of course, was totally at ease, singing along with The Spill Canvas on the CD player. It turned out that he only lived two streets behind mine, so ours was a short drive.
His house was much like any other on the street, two stories with a garage and a little yard. We went in the front hallway and up a short set of stairs into the kitchen. The room was decorated in cream and brown, copper cookware hanging on the wall, giving the space a very homey feel. Ron dropped his car keys on the small round table and pulled me into the living room by the hand.
I was very surprised, to say the least, to see his mother sitting on the couch. I suppose I'd just assumed she would be at work, like my own mother, so early in the morning. I felt uneasy about how she might react to our skipping school.
I managed a startled "Oh! Hello!"
Ron chuckled—the traitor—obviously unrepentant for the lack of warning on his part. My cheeks started to burn.
She didn't seem surprised to see me, though. "You must be Maura." She got up from the couch and extended her hand. "I'm Debbie."
I took her hand gently in mine, saying, "Nice to meet you." She was warm, just like him.
I would've expected her to have the same dark-brown hair and eyes as Ron, but she was a blue-eyed blonde. Her skin was the same deep brown as his, though, and she donned the same dazzling smile. He must have gotten his hair and eye coloring from his father.
"You too. Ron has had quite a lot to say about you." She gave me that kind of smile that usually holds a secret. I felt my already-red cheeks deepen with heat and color.
"Mom." He rolled his eyes. "You're embarrassing Maura!"
"What?" She feigned innocence. "Well, you do talk about her all the time, do you not? I'm only saying what's true."
It was his turn to redden a little. Debbie gave me a wink, and I knew she was allying with me against him to make me feel more comfortable. She was very likable.
Ron had had enough of our camaraderie, though, and put an arm around me to steer me toward the stairs at the back of the room. "Come on, Maura, and I'll show you my room." I didn't miss the teasing look of warning he shot at his mother.
I couldn't resist; once we were on the stairs, I asked, "So, you talk about me a lot?" I grinned up at him, feeling only a touch evil.
He rolled his eyes. "Females…this is what I get for putting you in a room together!" We were at the door to what must have been his room, then, and he led me inside without hesitation.
I wasn't surprised to find his room was a lot like my own. Computer desk with monitor, small TV—but he sported an Xbox 360 connected to his—my mouth began to water—on his dresser, a rack of video games and DVDs. His comforter was also a midnight blue, but with a spray of stars, no moons. I was envious of his matching curtains. Mine were the color of my comforter but plain and unpatterned.
My eyes darted back longingly to the 360. "Wow, you have Xbox," I noted, wondering if he could tell how envious I was. Caelyn refused to let me have anything other than my little PSOne. She thought the more modern games too violent for me to play.
"Yeah." He grinned. "Wanna play something?"
When he asked, my eyes immediately started cataloging his game collection. "You have Gears of War??" I'd been agonizing over my desire to play that game since I'd seen the very cool commercials on TV.
"Let's give it a go." He pulled the jewel case from the rack and popped the CD out so he could slide it into the waiting console.
I took the controller he held out to me as I eased onto the edge of his bed beside him. It didn't take too long to see what a handicap Caelyn had saddled me with by restricting my gaming to the much older system. I spent several minutes just to get the hang of walking my character around inside the elaborate graphics which made up his world. Since my older Final Fantasy games were a million miles away from a modern, first-person shooter, my kill ratio was excruciatingly humiliating. But seriously, if my mother thought the monsters in the game were going to scar my young mind or something, she was thoroughly mistaken!
"Far cry from Final Fantasy, huh?" Ron asked after the round came to an end.
"Wow, I'll say." My mouth still twisted in frustration. As I looked up to face him, my gaze fell across his shoulder to the far corner of the room. "No way..."
He followed my eyes. "Oh, that?' he uttered with complete nonchalance.
"Oh, that?" I mimicked back at him, sarcastically. "I didn't know you played." My eyes flicked back to the pair of guitars, one acoustic and one electric, standing side by side. I wondered how I'd missed seeing them before. "Wow, I guess you're just great at everything?"
He rolled his eyes. "Hardly!"
"Play something for me?"
"Awww, c'mon…. I haven't been playing that long. Wouldn't you rather shoot some more monsters?" He grinned hopefully.
"Nope." I crossed my arms and pulled out my most stubborn pout. I was fully prepared to sit frozen like that all day.
"Wow, that's impressive…okay, okay." He rolled his large, dark eyes. "But it'll have to be the acoustic. There's no way Mom will be cool with the amp this early in the morning."
He rose and moved to pick up the light-colored guitar, settling after back into place at the foot of the bed, only facing me then. After the first few chords, I recognized the song. He even sang the words to "Hey There Delilah" as he played. When he got the part about the thousand miles, though, I suddenly became very sad. So much so, that tears welled up in my eyes. He seemed to catch my mood and stopped playing. I hoped it wasn't some kind of sign he hadn't reached the optimistic portion of the lyrics.
"I guess we have to face it." I couldn't stand to see such sadness in his eyes.
"We can't keep avoiding the fact I'm moving a country away in a few weeks, huh?" I was embarrassed by the break in my voice. I never even allowed myself to cry in front of my mother.
"I don't want you to go."
"I don't want to leave." It was the first time I'd said such thoughts out loud. As sad as I was, it felt kind of good to voice the sorrow that had been welling up inside me.
"Maybe you could stay here!" His eyes lit up with revelation. "I'm sure Mom wouldn't mind. We have an extra bedroom." He'd taken up both my hands in his excitement. You'd have thought he'd just won the lottery, the way he was grinning.
I, however, did not share his enthusiasm. "You obviously don't know my mother like I do."
"But you're old enough to make your own decisions…"
"But—not old enough to do so legally," I reminded him. "Even if I could leave Caelyn—er, Mom—alone, and I just can't do that. She…well, she's been through a lot, and I'm all she has. Even if I could, trust me; she would never let me go."
His mood visibly deflated. "Oh…"
"Can I talk to you about something?" I asked. I wasn't just trying to divert his attention to alleviate his sadness, but my last comment had also reminded me of the recent weirdness infecting my life lately.
"Sure." He made an honest attempt at a real smile. My hands were still captured within his own, and I was very aware of their warmth. Ron started running his thumbs over the tops of my still-very-cool skin, almost derailing my train of thought completely.
I refocused and firmed up my resolve
"Have you ever felt like…well, like something weird is going on? Like things about you are changing for no good reason, and you're not sure why?"
"Hey, I���m a teenage guy. Are you kidding?" The last word came out as a chuckle.
I rolled my eyes. "Okay, I'll give you that one, but I'm being serious." I lowered my head because I was afraid of what my expression might look like to him. "Sometimes I wonder what's happening to me."
When I brought my eyes back to his face, he wore a very serious expression. I felt his hands tighten around my own.
"Just what exactly do you mean, Maura? Is something wrong? Is there something you've been keeping from me?" His words all came out in a rush so that I didn't really have time to answer the first two questions. I pondered a moment over the last, because the answer to that one was a definitive "yes."
My hesitation only agitated him further. "Maura!!"
I suddenly wished I hadn't broached that topic of conversation.
"You know what? I think it's just like you said and is all normal, teenager type stuff." I brightened my tone in order to sound more convincing.
"If it were about normal stuff, I don't think you'd look half as worried as you did half a minute ago." He eyed me with suspicion.
I laughed, hoping to throw him off. "Well, it's just changes in things. Like my hair…and cravings…normal stuff, really." And completely whacked stuff like thinking my own blood tastes awesome! I kept that part to myself.
He was quiet for a long moment and then resigned himself to acceptance. "Well, you know…if there's ever anything you want to talk about, I'm here. And I'd hope, if anything was wrong, you'd let me know—that you trust me at least that much." His eyes were all soft and faintly misty. I felt like I might fall into them, like a fish racing down, down into the safe blackness of the ocean depths.
"Oh, Ron, I do trust you!" I just don't want you to run screaming away.
"Good," was all he said. Then, he took me by surprise as he pulled me into his arms. We sat like that for what seemed like a very long time. I pushed the side of my head into his chest as hard as I could to better hear the steady, comforting sound of his heartbeat.
Finally, he said, "Do you want to give the monster hunt one more chance?"
"You bet!"
When I woke up, Ron was still asleep. Before starting the game again, we'd crawled up to the top of the bed so we could rest our backs against the headboard. When his beefed-up soldier had started trying to walk through a wall, I'd looked over to find him sleeping. Watching his peace-filled features, I memorized them for the time when I wouldn't be able to see him every day…every week…every month… How long would it be until I could see him again after we'd moved so far away? Would I even get to see him again at all? No! I pushed that thought from my mind and promised myself that, of course, we would find a way to see one another someday soon. I would hold onto that. The last thought running through my head, before succumbing to sleep myself, was the observation that his lower lip was just a bit fuller than the upper one…
I rose up on one elbow to look at the clock. Whew…only 10:23 AM. We still had loads of time before I had to be home. Some thought was nagging at me, though. That awful feeling you get when you've forgotten something was pervading my gut. What day was it again? Wednesday. Wednesday! I was surprised Caelyn hadn't reminded me about my dentist appointment after school that day. Very unlike my mother… The school bus had usually dropped me off there on my way home, so I could meet my mother, for past appointments. I hoped Ron wouldn't mind taking me. It was too late to call and cancel. Besides, a dental checkup was probably another thing Caelyn would want taken care of before all the upheaval moving would cause. I was in no mood for the lecture she'd give me for 'forgetting.'
I looked around the room while Ron slept on, trying to unravel the mystery he still was to me. I only wished I could have more time to get to know him.
On the walls were two silkscreened banners. Nailed to the far wall, straight across from the bed, a skeletal figure with crazy hair brandished an axe under the full moon. "Killers," in bloody red script, stood out against the background of angry looking clouds. To the left hung another with a simpler design. The silky square merely displayed the words 'Black Sabbath' with no other embellishment.
*Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, cool,* I thought to myself. *Ron is a classic-rock fan.*
A little to the left of the second banner stood a battered dresser with a small round mirror. There were pictures taped around its edges. I eased slowly, carefully, off the bed to go examine them. Maybe I'd find the mystery birthday girl there. At the top right was one of his mother, only she looked much younger. I guessed the child in her arms had to be Ron? He had a head full of dark hair even as a small baby. There were a couple of other pictures of him with her in various stages of his childhood. He must have been very close to her to allow those out for any passing eye to gaze upon.
On the opposite side were three photos of him with Shane. One had a couple of other guys included. Shane was on drums, and both a bass player and lead singer stood with them.
So, Ron was in a band? I felt funny he'd never mentioned that detail. Well, never in the two weeks I'd been getting to know him. Drumming, Shane looked very serious, a sharp contrast to the other two photos. In those, he wore his usual comically-manic expression, always trying to get a laugh from those around him. An admirable trait in my opinion. It never felt bad to laugh.
I jumped when I turned back to face the bed because Ron was propped up on one elbow looking at me. "Oh! You're awake," I fairly gasped in surprise.
He just grinned at me. I really loved that grin.
"I was just…your pictures…" I wondered if my expression looked as lame as my voice sounded, like a thief caught red-handed.
"Now, no teasing me about my baby fat or bowl haircut." He was mockingly stern.
"Oh! I wouldn't." I was sure my eyes were as huge as they felt. They ached slightly with strain.
"Relax, Maura. It's okay. I don't mind at all. I mean we're running out of chances to get to know each other." He regretted reminding us, by the look on his face.
I quickly changed the topic. "Hey, I just remembered a minute ago I have a dentist appointment this afternoon. Would you mind taking me?" I realized that would be totally boring and quickly added, "Sorry, I know it's not really exciting, but…"
"I'd love to!" My most favorite smile on Earth was still in place. "See, you can even make the dentist's office sound exciting." We both laughed at that.
"Well…I doubt that, but thanks!" I thought back to the pictures. "So, you're in a band?"
I thought he may have been blushing...just a little. "Yeah, we're just getting started, but it's a lot of fun. We haven't had any gigs yet, though."
"I'm sure you will!" I imagined myself with groupie status for a moment. "Shane plays the drums?"
"Yep! He's got GREAT rhythm. Hey! You should come to a practice sometime and hear us play."
"I would love that!" I played out the scenario for a second inside my head and realized, "But it's probably after school hours or on the weekend. Maybe we could convince Mom…"
He rolled his eyes. "Awww, c'mon…believe me; it's not that hard to convince any of those guys to lay out of school."
"Geez, I feel like such a horrible influence." I put my head down a bit because I really did. "And we really do have to go back to school tomorrow. We don't want to fail our finals."
"I guess so." He didn't look at all like he wanted to. "It's just so hard to think about any of that with you leaving. I know it sounds stupid, but you just seem like the only really important thing going on right now." He lowered his eyes.
"I know what you mean," I agreed. I couldn't say that being at the forefront of his mind didn't make me feel really happy, though. I snapped back into responsible mode. "But…if you failed your senior year, I could never forgive myself. If I fail junior year…well, I may not be breathing for much longer…"
"Yes, and breathing is good." He nodded his head knowingly, and I laughed again. "Okay, well, I guess two days is doable this week?"
"Definitely!" That nagging worry Caelyn was going to find out about my skipping school subsided a bit.
We spent the rest of the day playing games, besides the few songs I begged Ron into playing and the fabulous lunch his mother made for us. We stopped briefly back at my house, so I could scrub the garlic bread and spaghetti off my teeth before my dental appointment, and then we were off.
"Oh…Maura…but…" The receptionist scanned her computer screen for some detail she was missing, obviously confused by my arrival. "Yes! Your mother did call to cancel your hygiene appointment last week." So, she really wasn't coming to meet me.
I felt utterly confused. "She did?" I asked, unconvinced. My mother was big on regular checkup appointments, dentist included.
"Sure did, see?" The receptionist turned the screen around so I could see her notation.
I turned to Ron, embarrassed. "She never said anything to me about canceling. This is so not like her…"
The perky blonde behind the counter scanned the monitor further. "Oh! But we did have a cancellation. Would you like to take the spot?"
I couldn't imagine Caelyn canceling my yearly cleaning. There must be some mistake, so I said, "Yes. Definitely will take that. We're moving to a new city…well, country soon, and I'd much rather have Dr. Aurora."
"No problem! I'll just put you right in. That'll be a just a few minutes."
Ron and I went to sit in the small waiting room, each pretending to read some lame magazine from the array spread across the glass-topped table in the middle of the floor.
"I really hate the dentist," he confessed with a mischievous smile. "Better you than me!"
I elbowed him playfully. "Well, you know, I can see if they have a spot open for you too."
"No way! I hate the taste of that stuff they polish your teeth with!"
"Ugghh, but the fluoride is waaaaay worse!" Suddenly, I dreaded the appointment a bit more than I had before.
"Maura." A smiling dental assistant was calling my name, her sneakered foot propping the door to the operatory open.
"Too late to back out now." Ron gave me a wink.
"You wanna come back with me?" I was sorry as soon as the words were out of my mouth.
But he rose, to my surprise. "Need me to hold your hand?" That earned him a hard, pointy elbow to the ribs.
The smiling brunette—no wonder she was smiling; she was on the delivering end of those dental instruments—lead us to the last room. I settled as much as I could into the leather chair, considering my heightened anxiety. I wondered briefly if anyone liked going to the dentist, then pondered over how strange it was to see my handsome love interest seated in the spot my mother had so often occupied.
"Okay then, Sweetie, let's get your bitewings done." I was willing to bet the dental assistant wouldn't have been as cheerful if she were having hard-edged little x-ray films shoved down into her gums—and in front of an infallibly cute boy. I noticed her nametag read 'Charlotte.' She had a heavy southern accent. A Confederate transplant.
There was more waiting before Dr. Aurora finally came in and started poking around my mouth with that sharp little hook-shaped instrument. She stopped as she came around to my right canine, poking around and tapping on the tooth, giving that one considerably much more attention than she had the other teeth.
"Charlotte!" She called the dental assistant back in. "I want x-rays of the canines, 1-3 and 2-3 here." She called out the tooth numbers to the girl. There was more jabbing of film and me feeling self-conscious in front of Ron.
When the digital film was developed and came up on the computer screen, Dr. Aurora studied the image for a long time without saying anything. She looked more like a model, or possibly a Barbie doll than a dentist. Her hands were just as delicate as her facial features, and she had an innate gentleness which made her a very desirable choice for a coward like me. In ten years as my dentist, she'd never caused me pain.
"Where is your mother today?" she asked in her still-heavy Romanian accent.
"I think she forgot about my appointment," I answered sheepishly. "I just happened to remember."
"There is something wrong here." She indicated my canines on the screen. "See these teeth?"
I nodded, my brain still hung up on the phrase "something wrong here."
She must have read something akin to horror in my expression. Dr. Aurora spoke more softly. "Well, I don't know what is going on here, yet, but these two teeth look almost hollow. See?" She indicated the dark spaces running through my upper canines. "And when we compare with past x-rays here…" She brought another set of x-rays up on the screen—my full-mouth survey from two years ago. "See…these teeth?" Pointing again to my top canines. "They have grown. This is very unusual. Look." She used a probing instrument to make her point. "They are at least a millimeter and a half longer than when these older x-rays were taken. It's as if the roots are extending upward…see…here and here." She indicated with the point of a pen on the screen.
I looked at her blankly.
"That is very unusual. For the teeth to keep growing like this…and they appear to be deteriorating from the inside... I don't know." Her brow furrowed in a way that was scary to me.
"Deteriorating??" was all I seemed able to parrot back. I felt Ron take my hand.
She looked at me, and her expression told me she was at a loss. "I'm sorry." She shrugged then. "I've never seen anything like this. It's like there's tooth missing from the inside outward. Usually, decay comes from the outer wall like here." She pointed at another intact, dense tooth. "Into the middle the cavity comes. It's like bacteria started eating from inside the tooth. But just for these two… I can't explain this." She shook her head and looked down at the floor.
I instinctively wiggled the pair in question with the tip of my tongue. Neither moved… They felt pretty solid to me. I snuck a look at Ron. He appeared as steady and unmoving as usual; the look on his face spoke to mine being any normal, everyday dental appointment. If there was any doubt or fear he was feeling, he was hiding their presence very well.
I must have looked pretty scared, because she suddenly brushed the whole thing off with a, "You know what; this could just be a shadow on the film. Why don't we finish the exam, and you have your mom call me, okay? We'll bring you back in and redo them. Don't you worry about anything." I could see she was sorry she'd even mentioned the possibility of something being wrong. Her attempt at making me feel better did nothing to take the fear out of her eyes.
I lay there through the rest of the exam and polishing, trying to convince myself nothing was wrong. At one point, I couldn't help but picture myself canineless, wondering if they would eventually fall out. Did I have some kind of weird disease? And speaking of weird, I began to think about how Caelyn had been avoiding me lately. Did she know something she wasn't telling me?? I wanted very badly, in that moment of revelation, to be able to get up out of the chair and go home. I needed to confront my mother and find out the truth. My anxiety must have transferred to Ron, who was still holding my hand. He squeezed my fingers harder, and my nerves calmed in response, remembering he was here with me.
I still raced around the house, cleaning up as I would have if I'd come home from school on time. Well…after my dentist appointment. By the time I had dinner done, I was beyond agitated. Distraught by thoughts of my mother keeping something important from me, they played heavily through my mind. Ron was playing Final Fantasy in my room. My insistence that he be here was fueled by the imagining of a betrayal by my mother, prominent in my mind.
I was glad I'd put a roast in the crockpot that morning and set my mind to the preparation of mashed potatoes, gravy and honey-glazed carrots. But I still felt the weight of my distractions.
When Caelyn came home, I was all over her. I found myself yelling, "Mom!" before she was even in the door from the garage. "MOM!" I yelled again, as she was walking into the kitchen.
"I hear you, Maura." She sounded agitated, too. "What is the big emergency?"
Her heels clicked across the kitchen floor, reminding me of her adult status…looming far above my teenage one.
Some of my angst dissipated.
"Did you forget about my dental appointment today?" I asked more quietly.
"Maura, I called and canceled that." She looked at me quizzically.
So she had. "That's what they said. But why didn't you tell me?"
"You went??" Her eyes were so wide.
I remained very calm. "Mom, like I said, you never told me."
"I didn't think you'd remember, much less go without my dragging you there." It took her a minute to return normalcy to her face. "You went, then?" she asked again.
"Yes, Mom, I went." I couldn't keep the tension I felt out of my voice.
Her forced calm vanished, considerably. "So, how did it go?" She was hiding something from me!
"Well, the x-rays showed something wrong with some of my teeth."
Caelyn went as white as her olive-toned skin allowed.
Definitely something wrong here. "Mom, what's going on? I know there's something you're not telling me."
"I don't know what you're talking about, Maura." Caelyn put a very sharp edge to her tone. "I've had a very hard day, and I'm in no mood for any foolishness."
Denial.
"Foolishness? I'm trying to tell you there's something wrong with me, and you're calling it foolishness?!!" That was the first time I'd ever raised my voice to my mother. She looked appropriately shocked.
"Maura Maxine." Her whisper came out very controlled—with a huge helping of underlying menace. Uh oh.
"She's not kidding." The soft male voice coming from the staircase landing made me cringe. It was written all over my mother's face she hadn't known Ron was here. I could see a dangerous level of fury building in her eyes.
"Please, Ms. DeLuca, don't be angry." Ron had his perfect hands up in a placating gesture. "I took Maura to the dentist, and she said something like two of her top teeth are decaying from the inside out. They might even be falling out, because she said they're growing lower or something like that."
She'd listened to him quietly, and I knew her well enough to see she was trying to get her emotions under control. Caelyn took a deep breath, her cat-green eyes still flashing excitedly. "Is this true, Maura? Is this what the dentist said?"
I nodded my head emphatically, grateful that my mother's temper had cooled so easily. "Yes!" I put the tip of my index fingers onto the sharp points of each canine. "These two teeth! She said it's like the middles are missing, but she doesn't know how the bacteria got in there, 'cause there's no decay from the outside. Mom, I don't want my teeth to fall out…" I felt my lower lip tremble a bit and fought to keep tears from my eyes. All that effort caused my voice to come out as no more than a whisper. "Mom, I afraid I'm really sick. What if I have one of those weird types of cancer or something?"
Both Caelyn and Ron looked frightened when I finished that last sentence. And like they both wanted to hug me all better. But…Mom was closer.
"Oh, Maura." She embraced me tightly, and then stood back so she could look into my eyes, placing her overly-warm hands on either side of my face. "It's going to be okay; I promise you."
How could she know? Was it only wishful thinking on her part? "I don't know…" My voice had a humiliating shake to it, and the fact Ron was in the room made me painfully aware I was turning into a sniveling, scared toddler in front of him at my mother's touch.
"Now, now," she crooned; her anger of two minutes ago had completely vanished. "Don't worry, Maura. There are a ton of specialists in Vancouver. I'm sure we can find someone there who can explain exactly what is going on with your teeth."
The way she said that last part, with a kind of dreamy, faraway look on her face, made me feel funny. She ran the tip of a finger under my left canine and then drew her hand back sharply, a pained look on her face.
"Ooow! Maura, I think your teeth are in viciously-fine shape." She sucked a large bead of bright-red blood from her fingertip, and I licked my lips in a response, completely driven by instinct. I didn't miss the split second of eye-widening from my mother, though I admired her lightning-quick recovery.
I flicked my eyes in Ron's direction, and his gaze wandered up to the uninteresting ceiling. Non-committal in his observances, as always. I knew he could feel the weight of my stare.
His eyes closed, and he inhaled deeply. "Wow! Maura, something smells good!"
Caelyn joined him. "Is that beef roast?" She beamed at me then. "And do I smell dinner rolls? You've really outdone yourself, My Dear!" She sniffed the air again. "Maybe those are done, though? I think you'd better go check them." She moved away from me to make her way to the stairs. "I'm going to go change."
Well, that was the end of that conversation…but at least it looked like I wouldn't have to argue with her about Ron staying for dinner.